Skinny Sony Vaio S Series joins new notebook line-up

Imaginative naming from the Vaio team

Sony has unveiled its latest Vaio notebook, the Vaio S Series, for slim, stylish and long-lasting computing on the go.

The notebook isn't quite MacBook Air thin, but at 24mm it's only 7mm thicker than Apple's skinny laptop and weighs in at 1.75kg - that's like a bag and three-quarters of sugar, in old metrics.

Battery farm

One handy feature is the smart battery concept; as well as an internal lithium polymer battery which gives you seven hours computing (in 'stamina' mode, which is presumably the lowest-performance setting), there's an optional second battery which can be charged separately from the laptop for an additional 7 hours of life.

The Vaio S Series is quite a looker with its smart, understated design. The 13-inch LCD display comes with a low-reflection coating and 1366x768 resolution, while the S Series can switch between the integrated GPU and AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series card depending on what you're up to.

Sadly it doesn't glow like its stable mate, the Vaio C Series, but the S Series does have a backlit keyboard and ambient light sensor for saving battery and your poor, tired eyes.

When it comes to specs, we're looking at an Intel Core i5-2410M, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB drive and 3G WWAN, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 for connectivity. There's also an HD webcam built in and two USB 2.0 drives on board.

Shipping with Windows 7 Professional, the Vaio S Series UK release date is set for the end of March 2011, with UK pricing to be announced.